Perry Mason and the case of the widowed bride
by susan cousineau
Summary: This is a story of how Perry Mason solves a case where a husband disappears while on a cruise ship.


Perry Mason had been an attorney for over twenty years. He specialized in mysteries and murder cases and was well known for his investigative techniques.

Mr. Mason employed many people in his private office, but his private secretary Della Street and Paul Drake, the head of the Drake Detective Agency were foremost in all of his cases and the two of them went with him on many out of town cases.

Mr. Mason was a tall large man with black hair and a very kind face. He had been raised by his aunt who lived in the lap of luxury. Perry was very young when he made up his mind to become a criminal lawyer.

Della Street was five years his junior and was always dressed with the best of class. She was in her early 30 s with dark curly hair and a very nice smile and figure. She was smart as a whip and Perry's most trusted and loyal friend.

Paul Drake and Perry were about the same age, however, Paul was in the best of shape with a large muscular body blonde hair and stood about six feet two.

The three were a team that the prosecutor from the district attorney's office Hamilton Burger and Mr. Mason had found themselves at odds in several cases.

It was nearing the closing hour of five oclock when Gert one of the secretaries in the outer office knocked and told them of a young lady who had come into the office. She was in terrible trouble and in desperate need of a lawyer.

Perry looked over at Della with a smile and told Gertie to bring the young lady in The lady that walked into the office was about twenty two years old and very good looking. She had the appearance of a lady who had some money.

"Would you please have a seat?" Perry asked her with a smile. "This is my private secretary Miss Della Street."

The lady smiled at the two and started to tell them her story. "I am sorry to come to your office so close to closing however, the authorities have just released me. They told me that I was to stay in town while they investigate my husband's disappearance. My name is Doreen Wilson"

Perry again looked to Della and with a nod Della started taking notes. He recognized the name this lady had been on the news for the last few days. She had been on a cruise to the Bahamas when her husband disappeared off of their cruise ship "Go ahead and tell us what happened or that you know. If we can help we will be glad to be of assistance."

"We had just gotten married when we had gotten on the cruise ship. My parents had paid for us to go first class and we had a large suite. It was to be a cruise of a lifetime. John, my husband had been in the casino playing poker, while I had gone to play a game of bingo. When he had left the room everything seemed to be normal, but I never saw him again." With this she started to cry and Della handed her a kleenex.

"I just don't know what happened. I usually don't play poker, so I didn't even know the people that he was playing with. He was playing at the high end table, and they say that he had stayed there about two hours. The dealer told the police that when John left the table he had not won a ton of money, perhaps fifty dollars and had left in good spirits. The cruise ship has security cameras and he was seen leaving the casino and going into our suite. The camera for some reason stopped working for about five minutes that was located outside of my room and there is no footage of my husband leaving the room. The only person that is seen entering the suite is me."

Perry thought about this for a minute and then said "Did anyone try to find out why the security camera outside of your suite stopped working? It seems to be a little too convenient for someone to have that camera stop working."

"That is what the police say. They made it sound as if I had covered the lens at some point so that what had occured in our suite was not taped. They say they found blood on the railing outside of our suite also. They are waiting for the dna results, but they are sure the blood belongs to poor John. This was suposed to be a happy time not a time for burying my husband." Doreen told them.

Just then a knock came on the door it was Paul Drake, he was introduced and listened to Mrs. Wilson's story intently. He considered himself a good judge of character and something told him that this lady was innocent and that she was being set up by someone with a lot of influence. He would have to work, the cruise ship would be leaving in a few days and any evidence would be lost forever.

Perry stood up and shook the young lady's hand. "Don't worry we will start investigating right now and we will get back to you. Della will take your cell phone number and address of where you are staying and we will contact you as soon as we have any information for you."

After the young lady had left Paul looked over at Perry and shook his head "This is going to be a touch call Perry, these are international ships and they don't want any bad publicity. If they are allowed to leave, I am afraid that it will be the end of the investigation.

As Della walked back into the room Perry told her with a twinkle in his eye. "How would you like to book a cruise?"

"Della smiled back and said "and we must have the suite correct?"

Perry and Paul smiled at Della, and she knew that if nothing else she was going to get a nice cruise with this case.

Paul contacted one of his friends in the industry, and managed to get full access to the records and the suite. True to their word there was blood on the railing outside of the suite and it appeared as if it had been a handprint.  
Paul knew security systems very well and it was plain to see that the security system that the cruise ship used would be easy to disconnect. The system could have been disconnected by simply pulling the fuse from the camera. It would begin working again once the fuse was placed back in He found the camera to be easilly within his reach. Although the corridors could be busy when the boat was out to see, it was entirely possible that no one would have noticed someone checking the camera, had he been dressed as a work  
As he looked around the suite he found many items that the harbor authority police had missed. The police and the cruise ship had done a lousy job of inspecting the room. There were cigarette butts in the ashtrays even though neither Doreen or John smoked and under the couch he found a small ring. The ring was a ruby ring and worth a lot of money. It was a very small perhaps size five, it had belonged to a woman.  
Now it was time to talk to the crew, however, he found them unwilling to talk as they were in danger of losing their jobs if they spoke to the wrong person. He handed out many fifty dollar bills to get the information that he was able to get.  
He found Terry a young oriental man who had been in charge of the cleaning of sheets and laundy that the people in the suite would need. Terry had known that the police were going to be coming to investigate the grooms disappearance, so when he had found something in the suite he had kept it hidden. The day after John Wilson had disappeared, he had found a bloodied towel hidden behind the washing machine. He knew that this should not have been there, as this was where he did most of his work and he kept his area immaculate. Terry handed Paul the towel and Paul tucked it into his bag.

According to the records of the ship once Doreen had found her husband missing, they had done an immediate ship wide search. The ship had been at sea for two days and he had been seen in the afternoon. The crew had contacted all people on the cruise ship and had paid special attention to the people who had been playing poker with John just prior to his disappearance.

Meanwhile Perry and Della had been busy working with the international law and the harbor police. They were, as expected, aloof and only willing to give out information with a court order almost. The men who had been playing poker with John were three internationally known gamblers who had been known to hang it with the less respectful crowd. Two of the men Tom Bradley and Gene Mathews had spent time in jail for forgery and fraud.

Both Perry and Della were busy going over the information when John's parents came in. They were very upset and assured the two of them that their new daughter was innocent. "They was so much in love." John's mother cried.

John's father had a much more business like approach. "We have been told that you are one of the best attorney's in the state and that you have a great detective agency. Whatever happened if possible, we all would like to know." he told them.

"Can you please tell me about how you went about buying these tickets? This is an expensive suite. How did you find out about the cruise?" Perry asked Mr. Wilson.

"My son had been talking about taking a cruise for a long time and my wife and I thought that if we could afford it, we should be able to send them on a cruise that the two of them would not forget. My partner has a friend who is a travel agent and although the price was a little higher than I had wanted, the travel agent and us had come up with an agreement." Mr. Wilson told them. "You see two years ago my wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and as for me my old ticker is not well. Neither one of us know how long we have and it was hoped that my son would take over my side of the business. "  
"We will do what we can to make sure that your son's disappearance is taken care of. We will do all we can and will let you know as soon as we hear anything." Perry told the couple.

"Della, I want some information on the hardware store chain that Mr. Wilson and his partner Mark Stiles own. I want to know how the business is doing and what would happen if something happens to the Wilson's." Perry told her.

With that Della headed to her desk where she started making all of the necessary calls. Most of the afternoon was spent on the phone, but at the end of the time she had the answers that her boss wanted. The hardware business was booming and the five stores that Mr. Wilson and Mr. Stiles owned were very prosperous. With the passing of their only son the business will go to his wife if something happened to the Wilson's. Because there would be no one to take over the business on their side no money would be exchanged and Mr. Stiles would own the business free and clear.

When Della told Perry about the circumstances, Perry contacted Paul immediately. Paul would need to go to Atlanta and do some further checking.

The next day the dna came back on the towel that Paul had found. The dna showed to be positive for John Wilson. There was a lot of blood and the blood indicated that there might have been foul play involved. Perry finally got the information on the blood from the rail and it too matched John's family dna.

It was at this time that he called Doreen and asked her to come to the office. He told her of his findings and again asked her if she had heard anything or thought of anything that might help them solve the question of what had happened to John Wilson. This time her mother came with her to the office and just shook her head. She couldn't believe what had happened to her newlywed daughter and her new son in law.

Just as Doreen and her mother were getting ready to leave the office Perry received an emergency call from Paul. He had just arrived in Atlanta and had found Mr. Stiles dead from an apparent heart attack on the floor of his office.

Perry told Doreen and her mother Sandy the news and was surprised by Sandy's reaction. Although her daughter was a prime suspect in the disappearance of her new husband and daughter's father in law had been found dead in his office at the young age of 45 she seemed to take it in stride.  
The next day Della and Perry were scheduled to take their cruise the next day. Paul was also to keep in touch with them while he investigated the situation in Atlanta.

The suite was wonderful and had been cleaned thoroughly. They were headed for a three day cruise and would have to work hard to get all the information that they needed to find out what had happened to John.  
That evening Perry went to the casino and took a seat at the table where John had last been seen playing. He was a good player and enjoyed playing once in a while. But at all times he kept his eyes and ears open. Someone in that room knew something. He played well and won about two thousand dollars, he had made many mental notes and walked slowly down the hall. The security system as Paul had said was a simple camera that could easily have been tampered with.  
Meanwhile Paul in Atlanta was looking for something that would connect the death of Mr. Stiles and the disappearance of John. He looked over all of the security tapes that had been going on at the hardware store when Mr. Stiles had passed away. He noted that all Mr. Stiles had done was drink a cup of coffee. On a hunch he went back to the office and took the cup from the room. He would be checking for any remains with a friend that worked in a local lab.  
Della used her womanly ways to be able to talk to one of the maids who had been assigned to her suite on the last voyage of the cruise ship. The maid told her that once she had cleaned the room the ship's purser had required her to clean it again. She admitted to Della that she had been the one to hide the towel behind the washing machine. She had been very upset when she found the towel gone. She didn't know what to do when the towel disappeared. She had found it in the bathroom sink.  
When Perry got back from the gambling table he pulled the fuse out of the camera with ease. There was no one in the corridor and it took just a couple of seconds to pull it. When Perry heard what Della had found out he knew that the story was starting to come together.

With much reluctance the ship's captain allowed Perry to have access to the security cameras on the ship. It was a seven day cruise, there were over three thousand passengers and over one hundred cameras to go over. He decided that the best thing to do was to start in the dining rooms. Every passenger would have to go to the dining room to eat unless they ordered their meals to be served in their cabins.

Hour after hour Perry and Della watched the videos., "We are missing something Della. There is something wrong here."

"What about the ring that Paul found? Doreen says that she doesn't have a ring like that. It is a ring that is made to fit onto a very small hand." Della asked Perry.

It was then that there came a knock on the door. It was their porter. "Sir, I am sorry to have to ask you, but did you touch the camera that is located outside of your door. It was not working so I went to check and found that the fuse had been removed."

"That is quite interesting sir. You see the fuse has been out of the camera for over an hour. Does it normally take your security to notice something so long?" Perry asked him.

"The cameras are apt to go down once in a while, and since this is an exclusive part of the ship we don't worry about things like that as much." the porter told them.

"Can you tell me something sir? Were you working this end of the ship on the last cruise?" Perry asked him.

"Yes sir this has always been my part."

"I was wondering if there was anyone in this part of the ship that stayed in their cabin the whole trip?"

The porter thought for a moment and said "Yes there was the cabin across the hall had two ladies. Every meal was eaten in their cabin. I never saw them I would just leave the food on the table for them."

"Didn't you think that strange?" Perry asked

"Oh no many times we have couples who want to enjoy their privacy. Some never went out at all." he assured them.

"Della, there must be a time that they ventured into their cabin and a time that they left. Let's look at the videos from that time." Perry told her.

As they brought up the security camera from their hall during the time that new passengers would be arriving, they found that the camera had been tampered with. Unfortunately, that was to be found when they went to examine the tape during the time that they would have been leaving. Because of the way that the camera was set up if a person went from the back of the camera when they pulled out the fuse there would be no video of them at all. So, now they would have to watch the footage of the camera that was behind them and the one from the crossway just down the hall. They needed to know who was disturbing the camera.

After many more hours of pouring over the tapes Della and Perry had their answer. There, coming down the hall was Tom Bradley and Gene Mathews. They were seen walking toward the cabin across the hall and then were seen just ten minutes later walking back up the hallway. Was the disappearance to be that easy to solve? Who were these two men protecting?  
Perry gave Paul a call and told them of the urgency to find the two men who had been seen on the ships security camera. Perhaps they held the answer to the question What happened to John Wilson? Paul had found that the cup of coffee that Mr. Stiles had been drinking from had been laced with a lethal dose of arsenic. Someone didn't want him around either.  
Della and Perry had just one more night left to find out who was in the room across from them. They decided to check the camera at the grand entrance. All passengers had to go through the entrance and so they needed to find out who these women were.  
After reviewing all of the known tapes they had to admit that there was no one that arrived on the cruise ship and went through the grand entrance that matched two women or that looked vaguely familiar.  
As Perry and Della arrived back at the dock Paul met them. Unfortunately, sometime during the time that Doreen was supposed to be staying in New York she had gone back to Atlanta and she was now being held in an Atlanta jail under suspicion of murder in the first degree.  
Della gave a slight gasp for she knew that she and Perry were soon to be leaving for the airport and that they would be soon going to Atlanta. They had not any success with the tapes that she and Perry had examined but they still had many more to look over.  
The ride to Atlanta was long and with emergency tickets Perry and Della had been forced to ride in coach. Perry was a large man and felt very cramped in the small seats. Della had smiled knowingly and he just kept on thinking about the tapes. He had it and he snapped his fingers, the women must have come in through the employee entrance. As soon as they got to Atlanta they were going to have to look at the tapes again.  
When Della and Perry arrived in the Atlanta jail they were met by a very distraught Doreen. "I had to come to Atlanta. I got a message on my phone saying that it was a matter of life and death if I didn't come right away."  
"Who sent you such a message?" Perry asked her.  
"I don't know it was from a number that I didn't recognize but they sent the message to me three times."  
"Tomorrow morning I will do my best in court to get you out on bail, but email text or whatever you are not to leave the city of Atlanta. Is that clear young lady?"  
Doreen looked down and told him that she would stay right in her home with her mother until someone found out what was going on.  
One of the things that Paul had found out in all the years that he had been a private investigator that taking pictures and looking at pictures was one of the most important parts of his job. Pictures could say one thousand words sometimes.  
That night Perry Paul and Della spent the night looking at video after video and then the pictures. Time and time again, they found nothing, until finally there on the video was someone that they recognized. It was time for them to have a meeting of all the suspects. Once Doreen was to be bailed out of jail they would have a meeting at Doreen and her parents home.  
The time in court was short and Doreen was allowed out on bail. Della called Sandy and her husband Tom. Although Sandy and Tom had been divorced for many years they kept in touch with each other because of their daughter Doreen.  
Perry and Della had never met Mrs. Stiles. She was a very small woman in her middle forties who was wearing black as she had just become a widow. She seemed to be friendly but a little nervous. She had many things to do and did not want to be kept long.  
" I have a good reason to ask everyone to come to Sandy and Doreen's house. As you know Paul Drake Della Street and I have been working on finding what has happened to her husband. John was a young man with a bright future and I think that we have the murderers here in this room. Perry told them menacingly.  
"That is ridiculous. No one in this room has killed anyone. He fell overboard or something." Sandy told the group.  
"The killers hid their part in the murder well. However, after scouring over the many hours of video tapes I have an answer. Mrs. Stiles I have noticed that in many of your photos you appear to be wearing a ruby ring. Do you know what happened to it?" Perry asked.  
"I am afraid that I lost that ring several weeks ago. I am not sure where it is." Mrs. Stiles answered.  
"Is this the ring?" Paul asked.  
Mrs. Stiles looked surprised to find out that Paul had found her ring. "Where did you find that? It does look a lot like my ring."  
"We found this ring under the couch in Doreen and John's suite. You had me quite confused until we saw your arrival on the cruise ship. You see even the employees are video taped." Perry told her.  
"When we found out that there had been two ladies staying across the hall who had never left their cabin, we started to get suspicious." Della told them.  
"And then you got nervous and had to quiet your husband Mrs. Stiles. It was a perfect set up John's parents didn't have much time left in this world. And you, Doreen, you must have been shocked to find out that your daughter had been the sole person named in your parents will. It all went together when we found that you were soon to be flat broke. What happened was your husband unwilling to give you half of his business?" Perry spoke in a loud assertive voice. "It didn't take much investigating to find out that you and Sandy have been lovers for years. This was a no lose situation for the two of you, your daughter would be in jail your husband would be dead with your daughter charged and you and Sandy would own five lucrative hardware stores."  
With that Sandy broke down in tears. "We didn't know what to do. There was a knock on the cabin door and without thinking I opened the door. It was John and of course he recognized me and wanted to know what I was doing on the ship. If he had told Doreen our whole plan would have been exposed. We had those awful men Gene and Tom remove the fuse from the camera and we went over to John's suite. He was waiting for Doreen, we begged him not to tell her that we were there but he was determined. I hit him, he was woozy and so I pushed him over the rail. God he hung on for almost five minutes yelling for help. No one heard him though and he finally fell in the water."  
Mrs Stiles had been trying to shut her up the whole time. The woman was going to spoil everything. All she had to do was keep her mouth shut.  
With that Perry called the police and had the two women arrested. It had been a long week but again the innocent were free and the guilty were headed for jail.  
Doreen thanked the trio and promised that she was going to her best to make sure that her husband was given an honorable burial. 


End file.
